Fancy Galleries, Fake Art

Summary

Podcast Summary: Reveal – "Fancy Galleries, Fake Art"

Date: December 20, 2025
Host: Al Letson
Reporter: Giselle Rigatau
Podcast by: The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

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Overview

This episode investigates one of the largest art fraud scandals in modern U.S. history, where 63 expertly forged masterpieces were sold through prestigious New York galleries for over $80 million. Reveal reporter Giselle Rigatau takes listeners deep inside the web of deceit connecting under-the-radar forgers, complicit or negligent gallery staff, and a laissez-faire industry culture. The story also explores the broader implications for both art market regulation and justice for scam victims.

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Main Story: How a $4 Million De Kooning Exposed a Massive Art Fraud

Introduction to the Art Fraud

• [02:51] Reporter Giselle Rigatau visits art collector John Howard at his Manhattan brownstone.

  • Howard’s prized painting—supposedly by Willem de Kooning—was bought for $4 million in 2007.
  • He discovers it is a fake when an expert points out the yellow pigment could not have existed in 1953, when the piece was allegedly painted.
  • Quote:
    John Howard (04:34): "That particular chrome yellow wasn't invented until 1990."

• This painting is just one of 63 forgeries that federal prosecutors would later reveal had netted over $80 million. The forgeries were created by a small group led by Chinese painter Pei-Shen Qian, and funneled through a chain involving Spanish and Mexican-American partners—ultimately landing at highly trusted establishments like Knoedler Gallery and Julian Weissman Fine Art.

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How the Scheme Worked

• [05:28] Painter produced fakes in a garage in Queens, mimicking the styles of Pollock, Warhol, Rothko, and others.

• They aged the paintings with teabags and even vacuum cleaner dust to add authenticity.

• Glafira Rosales posed as a dealer for a secretive European collector and sold the works to galleries.

  Quote:
  Giselle Rigatau (05:45): "They rubbed tea bags on them to make them brown... even emptied dustbuster bins on the canvases because old paintings have dirt and dust that collect on them."

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The Gallery Connection and Complicity

• [06:25-07:04] Knoedler Gallery, a storied institution, sold 40 of the 63 fakes; Julian Weissman Fine Art sold the remaining 23.

• Collectors like Howard, unaware of the scam, relied entirely on gallery reputation.

  • Quote:
    John Howard (06:53): “These are the most august, serious people, institutional people in the world, and they’re vetting it. So what more work could I have done?”

• FBI eventually investigates, but most perpetrators evade prosecution. Only Glafira Rosales was convicted—serving three months in prison. The galleries themselves avoided charges.

  • Quote:
    Giselle Rigatau (07:33): “...this story isn’t just about them. It’s also about those two art galleries that sold the 63 fake paintings.”

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Red Flags and Gallery Profits

• [10:00-13:10] Even artists’ descendants and expert committees, like Richard Diebenkorn's daughter, felt something was "missing"—the paintings had "no soul."

  • Quote:
    Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant (10:02): “It didn’t have any soul. It had no life.”

• Galleries sold the paintings at massive profit margins (up to 90%, versus typical 20–30%), driven largely by the surging supply of "discovered" masterpieces.

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Lax Regulation and Art Market Culture

• [14:53-18:44] Mark Limcher, president of Pace Gallery, explains how provenance and catalogues raisonnés are supposed to protect buyers, but secrecy and trust culture in top-tier galleries create loopholes.

  • Quote:
    Mark Limcher (16:06): "That famous owner does not want anyone to know that this painting is for sale... that lends us towards a possibility for fraud."

• Galleries routinely allowed works to be sold with little to no provenance, relying on handshake deals and the mythos of exclusivity.

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Turning Point: Cataloguing the Forgeries

• [26:05-28:18] Jack Flam, head of the Motherwell foundation, helped bust the operation by assembling multiple suspicious "Motherwells"—all with nearly identical signatures and materials unavailable in the 1950s.

  • Quote:
    Jack Flam (27:40): "It was almost like a template...I think they are fake."

• After alerting Knoedler president Ann Friedman, the gallery goes on the defensive; eventually, the FBI is contacted, leading to the closure of Knoedler in 2011.

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(Lack of) Accountability

• [31:28-35:19] Gallery heads and owners decline interviews, presenting themselves as victims.

• Ann Friedman's lawyer, Luke Nikas, argues Knoedler did "thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of research" and believed in the plausibility of the source story, though ultimately this research was not genuine due diligence.

  • Quote:
    Luke Nikas (33:53): “You have the work of art there, and if you’re comfortable with the work of art, then this is, in essence, the story that’s behind it.”

  • Concession:
    Luke Nikas (37:13): "But ultimately, this information sold works that were fake... did we mean for that to happen? I think they’d say absolutely not. But did that happen? Of course it did."

• Prosecutors explain the high bar for criminal prosecution—intent to defraud beyond a reasonable doubt—was never met for gallery staff.

  • Quote:
    Jason Hernandez, U.S. Attorney's Office (38:21): "The burden in a criminal case is extremely high... and you gotta convince 12 people of that."

• Legal expert John Lauro expresses disbelief no one else was prosecuted:

  • Quote:
    John Lauro (38:46): "I've seen cases with much less evidence get convictions, much less."

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Consequences and Broader Implications

• Rosales ordered to pay $81 million restitution; her house and assets were seized. She now works as a waitress after serving just three months.
• The scam led to soul searching in the art world, especially when similar incidents emerged, like 25 Basquiat forgeries shown at the Orlando Museum of Art in 2022.

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Second Story: The Nazi-Looted Modigliani and the Panama Papers

• The episode transitions ([43:12]) to a historical art theft—Nazi-looted Modigliani, "Seated Man with a Cane".
• Traced through the Panama Papers and extensive art detective work, the painting was allegedly stashed in Swiss warehouses and fought over in court by descendants of the original owner and a billionaire art dealer’s family.
• CBC journalist Frederic Zalac and Reveal’s Emily Harris detail how shell companies obscure real ownership, a practice paralleling the secrecy and loopholes exploited in the Knoedler fraud.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

| Time | Speaker | Quote/Remark | |---------|-----------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:34 | John Howard | “That particular chrome yellow wasn’t invented until 1990.” | | 06:53 | John Howard | “These are the most august, serious people… and they’re vetting it. So what more work could I have done?”| | 10:02 | Gretchen Diebenkorn | “It didn’t have any soul. It had no life.” | | 16:06 | Mark Limcher | “That famous owner does not want anyone to know that this painting is for sale... that lends us towards a possibility for fraud.” | | 27:40 | Jack Flam | "It was almost like a template...I think they are fake." | | 37:13 | Luke Nikas | "Did we mean for that to happen? I think they’d say absolutely not. But did that happen? Of course it did." | | 38:21 | Jason Hernandez | "The burden in a criminal case is extremely high... you have to prove that someone set out to defraud another person beyond a reasonable doubt..." | | 38:46 | John Lauro | "I've seen cases with much less evidence get convictions, much less." |

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Key Takeaways

• The art world’s prestige ecosystems and traditions of secrecy provide a fertile ground for massive fraud.
• Collectors, trusting reputations and due diligence, become easy targets when galleries abandon best practices in favor of profit.
• Gallery staff and owners rarely face legal consequences unless clear criminal intent is established.
• High-profile forgeries continue to surface, sparking renewed calls for better regulation and transparency.

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Suggested Timestamps for Segments

• [02:51] – John Howard’s de Kooning & discovery it’s a fake
• [05:09] – Overview of the $80 million fraud, key players, and modus operandi
• [06:25] – Knoedler and Julian Weissman’s role; impact on collectors
• [09:47] – Artist and expert doubts (“no soul”), industry’s fear of saying “fake”
• [13:10] – Financial stakes and profit anomalies at Knoedler
• [14:53] – Trusted art dealer’s perspective on safeguards and provenance
• [26:05] – Jack Flam and the bust of the fake Motherwells
• [31:28] – Galleries’ defense via lawyers, legal and cultural analysis
• [43:12] – Nazi-looted Modigliani and the Panama Papers revelation

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Tone & Style

The reporting combines curiosity, incredulity, and dismay. The narrative is investigative but deeply human—focusing on personal, financial, and cultural stakes for collectors, experts, forgers, and dealers alike.

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Conclusion

"Fancy Galleries, Fake Art" reveals how the intersection of money, trust, and secrecy allowed one of the biggest art frauds in history to flourish for years—and how accountability remains elusive when powerful institutions are involved. This two-track investigation expertly exposes both long-standing vulnerabilities in the elite art market and the recurring patterns of impunity that enable them.

Transcript

[Al Letson]

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[Giselle Rigatau]

Hey, It's Al. And 2025 has been a brutal year for public media. I gotta tell you, it is not easy to produce fearless journalism at a time when, when truth itself is under siege. The one thing it takes is community. That's you. Your support, your time, your willingness to listen, share and engage. That's what keeps our reporting alive and thriving. Every time you tune into our work, you're part of the community that says, yes, facts matter. Yes, power should be challenged, and yes, independent voices are. Are essential. Right now, we need that community to step up for us and donate. We've got a big year end fundraising goal and we need you on board if we're going to get there. This show, well, it just cannot exist without listeners who care enough to help us pay the bills. Listeners like you. So I'm asking you, can you help? Any amount works for us. Just text give to 8881. That's give to 888-577-3832 and we'll send a donate link or visit revealnews.org 2026 thank you. From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. John Howard lives in an impressive home, a Manhattan brownstone, four stories high, covered in green vines.

[John Howard]

I literally, I walked into this house and I walked over here and I said, okay, I'll do it. I'll buy it. I didn't even go upstairs.

[Giselle Rigatau]

It's not the house that we're here to see so much as what's in it. John's an Art collector.

I noticed the art right away. Do you have art in all the rooms in this house?

[John Howard]

Pretty much.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John's talking to reporter Giselle Rigatau. She's here to see one painting in particular, one that hasn't hung in John's house for years.

So it's all wrapped in brown paper. Did you wrap it yourself?

[John Howard]

I did not. And it's all tied up very neatly with cord, which I'm now gonna cut.

[Giselle Rigatau]

It has a very prestigious signature. Willem de Kooning. He's a famous Dutch American painter known for his abstract expressionist work.

[John Howard]

So I probably haven't seen this in, I don't know, something between five and 10 years. And there it is.

[Giselle Rigatau]

The painting has vibrant splashes of blue, black, white, and a peculiar yellow that John just loves.

[John Howard]

It's not a chrome yellow. It's a kind of muted yellow. It has more brown in it. So it's an ochre color is what I call it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

When he bought it back in 2007, it was the most he ever spent on a piece of art. $4 million.

[John Howard]

There was a poignance to my buying it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John's dad collected art. De Kooning was one of his favorites.

[John Howard]

My father could never afford to buy one of his paintings.

[Giselle Rigatau]

His dad was a Jewish immigrant who escaped from Germany at the beginning of World War II. For John, the de Kooning was kind of a statement, like, look at how far we've come. It used to hang next to his fireplace. Then a few years after he bought it, he took it to an expert.

[John Howard]

And the guy calls me back in a day and says, it's a fake. And I said, how do you know it's a fake? He goes, you know that yellow on the painting? I go, yeah, I know that yellow. That's why I bought the painting. That yellow is so beautiful. He goes, well, you know, the painting was supposed to be painted in 1953. That particular chrome yellow wasn't invented until 1990.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John fell prey to a fake art scheme, one that federal prosecutors say is one of the largest in modern US history. 63 fake masterpieces that sold for more than $80 million.

It's a crazy story.

A crazy story that we first aired back in 2020, and one that Giselle had been tracking for years before that. The story made international news when it broke. At the center were four immigrants, two Spanish brothers, a Mexican American woman, and a Chinese painter.

In the garage behind his house in Queens, the Chinese painter churned out fake painting after fake painting. Artworks in the style of people like Jackson Pollock. Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko.

And then they did all sorts of things to make the paintings look old.

They rubbed tea bags on them to make them brown.

[John Howard]

They.

[Giselle Rigatau]

They even emptied dustbuster bins on the canvases because old paintings have dirt and dust that collect on them.

But collectors don't buy Pollocks and Rothko's from strangers working out of a garage. They buy them from trusted galleries. So one of the fraudsters, a woman by the name of Glafira Rosales, approached two galleries with a story.

She told them she was a dealer who was representing an anonymous European collector. He had just died and the family was selling some of his works.

The galleries bought the paintings and resold them to collectors. This started in the mid-90s and continued for the next 15 years.

One of these galleries was the Knoedler Gallery. It was one of the oldest and most well respected art galleries in the country. Of the 63 fake paintings, Knoedler sold 40 of them. Another gallery, Julian Wiseman Fine Art, owned by a former Knoedler employee, sold the other 23.

Collectors like John Howard, say they never doubted the authenticity of the paintings because those galleries are supposed to make sure they're the real thing.

[John Howard]

These are the most august, serious people, institutional people in the world, and they're vetting it. So what more work could I have done?

[Giselle Rigatau]

Eventually, the FBI got involved and the whole thing came. Came crashing down. Remember, the victims were conned out of more than $80 million. But when the investigation was over, almost no one was punished. Lafira Rosales, the fake art dealer, struck a plea deal and spent just three months behind bars. Her partners all fled the country before they could be arrested. As for the art galleries, they were never charged with any crimes. And that got Giselle's reporter sense tingling.

I've spent most of my career reporting on arts and culture, and I'm also an immigrant myself. So I've been fascinated with how four people who didn't speak English particularly well and were not well connected in high end art circles, how could they have pulled this whole scheme off? And I just kept thinking that this story isn't just about them. It's also about those two art galleries that sold the 63 fake paintings.

Giselli set out on a journey that would take her from that garage in Queens to the back rooms of some of the glitziest galleries in the world. It would open up even bigger questions about the winners and losers in this massive multi million dollar scam. Giselli takes the story from here.

The Knoedler Gallery was a legendary place. Paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer made their way through these doors. It used to sit here on East 70th street in Manhattan's Upper east side. And it was in business for 165 years. When the fake dealer Glafira Rosales would show up here, she often arrived by car, clutching paintings in her bare hands. No big wooden crates, which is how expensive art is generally handled. And Glafira had few details to offer about where the paintings were coming from, just that she was representing a collector who wished to remain anonymous. The first two paintings that Knoedler Gallery bought from her were by Richard Diebenkorn, a California based artist who had just died soon after his daughter, Gretchen Diebenkorn. Grant says she got a call from Knoedler. It was from someone you're gonna hear about a lot, someone who wouldn't agree to talk to us for this story. Ann Friedman, the gallery's president, she said.

[Al Letson]

Some Diebenkorns have come in, and I thought you'd be interested in seeing them.

[Giselle Rigatau]

The two pieces Knoedler invited Gretchen to see were a bit of a mystery. They had almost no provenance. Provenance is pretty important in the art world. It's the chronology of everyone who's ever owned a particular piece of art. In a back room at the gallery, Gretchen and her mom looked at the paintings closely, studying them. Gretchen thought they had the right proportions.

[Al Letson]

The right colors, the tonality of it was pretty good. Well, I would say quite good. But there was something wrong somehow to me. And so I kept looking at it, and my mother kept looking at it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

She finally realized what's missing.

[Al Letson]

It didn't have any soul. It had no life.

[Giselle Rigatau]

But Gretchen didn't come right out and say what she was thinking because we.

[Al Letson]

Were advised early on never to say anything. Was not by my father. The F word, as we refer to it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

F word meaning fake. It's a big no no in the art world because if you say an artwork is a fake, you can be sued. Owners can come after you for defamation of property. Even though she didn't use the F word, Gretchen says she made her uncertainty about the paintings clear to the gallery's president, Ann Friedman. Then after a few months, she got a letter from the Knoedler Gallery saying.

[Al Letson]

That because we had authenticated this work, they had then sold it and they wanted us to know that. And my mother was outraged, as was I, because we most certainly did not say that.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Gretchen says she was never asked to authenticate the Art, only to see it. Court documents show that lots of collectors who bought these fake paintings were under the impression that experts had authenticated them. But many experts testified that it never happened. So what became of those paintings Gretchen looked at? For that, we head to Manhattan's Upper west side to meet Bernard Kruger. Bernard's a doctor. He lives in an apartment with his wife, two kids, their dog Molly, and a lot of art. Bernard has been a lifelong fan of Richard Diebenkorn.

[Jack Flam]

You know, was always attracted to the underpainting, the color, feels, the subtleness of it. And the collage. I like collage.

[Giselle Rigatau]

He saw several Diebenkorn exhibitions at the Knoedler Gallery. He wanted to buy some of his pieces, but it wasn't easy.

[Jack Flam]

I would go to Knoedler and, you know, you'd have to beg her to buy a Diebencliffe.

[Giselle Rigatau]

He's talking about Ann Friedman. She was a tough gatekeeper.

[Jack Flam]

She was absolutely nasty about it. And if you weren't somebody that she cared about, she wouldn't let you buy one.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Why not?

[Jack Flam]

Well, because this is how she gave out her favors. And finally, she let me buy one. I never got a choice of one. She never would let me buy the best.

[Giselle Rigatau]

He says it was like this for years, always courting Ann Friedman, begging to buy. Then, in 1994, things changed. Suddenly he gets a call. Ann tells him that Knoedler has two pieces available for him to see, those same dibbonkorns Gretchen and her mom looked at months earlier.

[Jack Flam]

I think I paid 80 for it or 75. And by then I was.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I checked. He actually paid $95,000 for it, about 30,000 less than the last dibbon corn he had bought. I asked him, didn't you think it was strange? All of a sudden, a dibbon corn is coming your way so easily and at such a good price.

[Jack Flam]

I thought it was great. Finally, you know, I'm getting a good deal on a diebencorn.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Knoedler was getting a good deal, too. Court records show that the gallery made $45,000 on Bernard's fake dibbon corn, a profit margin of 90%. That's way above the industry average, which is more like 20 to 30%. Throughout the years, as Knoedler buys more and more of the fakes, its profit margin skyrockets. In some cases, the gallery sold paintings for more than 10 times what it paid to the dealer Glafira Rosales. I learned that in 2003, the International foundation for Art Research, or IFAR, analyzed one of the Pollacks that came from Glafira. It could not confirm the painting was legitimate. Knoedler knew about this, but continued buying pieces from her anyway. Court records reveal that between 1994 and 2011, the fakes were the only thing keeping the Knoedler Gallery profitable. The business made about $30 million over that period. But take away the fakes, and it would have been more than $3 million in the hole. The art world is notoriously unregulated. It's often compared to the markets for drugs and guns, and deals are frequently sealed with handshakes. Still, there are best practices, tried and true methods that galleries use to ensure that the artwork they are selling is legit. To talk about how it's supposed to work, I turned to one of the most prominent art dealers in the country. Everything smells of wood here.

[Mark Limcher]

That's me burning incense.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Meet the metaphysical Mark Limcher.

[Mark Limcher]

I'm so Crystals. Oh, my God. I'm way past New Age. Okay, Pace is about enlightenment, am I right? I mean, what else is the art world about?

[Giselle Rigatau]

Mark is the president of Pace Gallery. It's one of the largest galleries in New York City. It was founded by his dad in 1960. Pace represents one of the giants of American art, Mark Rothko. Still, it's not like the gallery has his paintings sitting on shelves. They are extremely rare. But it seems it's my lucky day. So do you have a Rothko available?

[Mark Limcher]

Yes, I do, strangely enough.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Could we see it?

No.

Why?

[Mark Limcher]

I'm sorry.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Why not?

[Mark Limcher]

Because only allowed to offer it to one person, and that person's waiting.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Oh, but we're not gonna buy it.

[Mark Limcher]

I know.

[Giselle Rigatau]

We're just pretending.

[Mark Limcher]

I know.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Can you describe the painting or tell us what it is?

[Mark Limcher]

Good question.

[John Howard]

Hmm.

[Mark Limcher]

Can I do that?

[Giselle Rigatau]

Well, he can't. All Mark can say is it's owned by someone famous.

[Mark Limcher]

That famous owner does not want anyone to know that this painting is for sale. Okay. So that lends us towards a possibility for fraud. Because I can turn to you and say, I can't tell you anything about this painting. I know it's a secret.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Mark says there's a reason it's done this way.

[Mark Limcher]

We don't want Rothko's floating around on the open market and people discussing the prices and is it available? Why is it available? Why does that person need the money, Et cetera, et cetera. We're a business where being the first or only person to be offered that painting is very important to value of that painting.

[Giselle Rigatau]

This is part of how art dealers create excitement and control prices they don't offer them to just anybody.

[Mark Limcher]

We should be able to offer to one person and sell it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Mark says trusted collectors are the ones who get to buy the best work, no one else. People like me don't get to just walk in off the streets and buy a Rothko. But that's exactly what happened at Knoedler. One collector walked into the gallery for the first time and was offered a Rothko and a Pollock. He bought the Rothko. It was fake. Mark's tight lipped about his Rothko, but after some prodding, he does tell me the price. More than $100 million. Even though buyers might not have all the information they would like, Mark says there are basic safeguards to make sure people are getting what they pay for.

[Mark Limcher]

So we say your painting's been included in the catalog raisonne. We show you that in the catalog Raisonne.

[Giselle Rigatau]

The catalog Raisonne is like the artist's bible. It has all of his or her works that are believed to be authentic. In the case of the fakes, Knoedler and Julian Weizman were selling works without that, buyers had no proof that William de Kooning, Mark Rothko, or Robert Motherwell had ever created the paintings they were paying millions for. There's another way paintings are authenticated. You can't tell me who is selling it.

[Mark Limcher]

No.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Can you give me some. Some documentation of provenance?

[Mark Limcher]

I can definitely give you the documentation of the provenance, but the last entry is going to say private collection, New York.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Perfect provenance should trace ownership of a painting all the way back to the artist's studio, proving that it's authentic. But holes in provenance are common. So it looks like I'm going to this in the dark.

[Mark Limcher]

You're going to be a little bit in the dark.

[Giselle Rigatau]

The collectors who bought all those fake paintings were completely in the dark because the works had almost zero provenance and nothing in a catalog raisonne. Those collectors should have been more skeptical, but so should the galleries. They bought masterpiece after masterpiece that supposedly came from a single anonymous collector. Watch. Collector has dozens of masterpieces of unknown origin. I spoke to several experts who say that after years of buying up mysterious works, the gallery should have realized it was too good to be true. If you had been in that situation, would you have bought those paintings?

[Mark Limcher]

No. Never.

[Giselle Rigatau]

If people that are in this market commit some kind of wrongdoing in the practice of your professional.

[Mark Limcher]

Absolutely.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Don't you think they should be punished for it?

[Mark Limcher]

Yes.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Do you think they were?

[Mark Limcher]

Probably not. You know, we are in a business of trust. And I think that if you break trust and do not assume immediately 100% responsibility, there's, there's nothing, nothing worse than that in the art business. There could be no greater crime.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I spoke to multiple victims for this story who believed that at some point the two galleries must have suspected that the paintings they were selling were fake, which is why this next detail raises even more questions. John Howard says a few months after he bought that fake de Kooning, he got a call from Knoedler's president, Ann Friedman.

[John Howard]

She said, what other artists are you interested in? What other paintings are you interested in? Because you never know when we're going to come across something.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John says he told her about one artist he loves, American abstract painter Robert Motherwell.

[John Howard]

There's a series of paintings that he did called the Spanish Elegy series, which are beautiful paintings, and they're large format ones and, and small ones. And I said, I know the small ones are rarer, but I'd really be interested in a small format Spanish elegy painting.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Then about six months later, John says, Anne calls him again and she goes.

[John Howard]

John Howard, I don't know. I remember this expression. I don't know what lucky star you live under, but guess what I have in my hands, you know? And I pause and I think and I go, small format Spanish Elegy painting. And she goes, exactly. Can you come on Saturday to see it?

[Giselle Rigatau]

But when John sees the painting, he doesn't like it and decides to pass. That extremely rare mother well also turned out to be fake.

That fake painting came from Glafira Rosales. We don't know if Ann Freedman asked Glafira for it specifically, but, but prosecutors did find that on multiple occasions, gallery employees went to Glafira to request specific, hard to find works. We'll learn more about that after the break when we sit down with Anne Freeman's lawyer, Luke Nikas.

[Luke Nikas]

The document production that Knoedler made in this case was thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of research and memos and research on what? On, on the story. So.

[Giselle Rigatau]

But it was all fake. What kind of research was that?

Sure. That's coming up on Reveal.

[Josh Sanborn]

You've seen the headlines. Families torn apart in ice, raids at schools, workplaces, even daycares. What you don't see is what comes next. Detention. Most detained immigrants have no criminal record and no lawyer without representation. Deportation is almost certain. With an attorney, they're five times more likely to succeed. Lawyers for Good Government's Detention Bridge project mobilizes volunteer attorneys so no one faces this system alone. Learn more@ Detentionbridge.org. This is Josh Sanborn, producer at Reveal. This episode is made possible by support from the League of Conservation Voters. The climate crisis isn't a distant threat. It's here. But even though things might feel bleak, there's real progress happening thanks to organizations like the League of Conservation Voters, LCV for short. Mobilizing people to stand up the environment. For over 50 years, LCV has translated our shared hope for a greener future into pro environmental policies that create clean energy jobs, make air cleaner to breathe and water safer to drink, keep public lands in the public's hands, and ensure every community is a healthy place to live. LCV is counting on people like you to sustain that work. Every Contribution Funds LCV's advice, advocacy, from pushing for stronger climate policies to standing up to big polluters and the Trump administration. Now, through December 31, every donation toward LCV's pursuit of a brighter future gets double matched. [e-mail] reveal today.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Hey, it's Al again. And before we get back to the show, I'm just following up on my request from earlier. You know, the one about how we need your donations before December 31st to ensure that we can keep bringing you investigations like this in 2026. We need you, please. Before you grab another cup of coffee or start scrolling on your phone, just text the word give to 88857 reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org 2026 and thank you. From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. This is Reveal. I'm Al Edson. Today on the show, we're investigating one of the biggest art frauds in modern US history, 63 fake paintings totaling more than $80 million. Dozens of collectors were caught up in the scheme. The question we're asking how did this happen? How did two well respected New York galleries, Julian Weissman Fine Art and the Knoedler Gallery, resell fake painting after fake painting for 15 straight years? When we left off, collector John Howard had just passed on buying a Spanish elegy painting from American artist Robert Motherwell. That painting would go on to expose this whole fraud. Reporter Giselle Regattao picks up the story with what happens next.

Earlier, I described a catalog raisone as a bible of an artist's work. Everything an artist has ever done should be in there. Putting one together is like a treasure hunt. You have to go around the country, the world, examining each and every work that may have been done by an artist, and you try to determine whether pieces are real or fake. That's what Jack Flam was doing in the early 2000s. He was the president of the Daedalus foundation, an organization that promotes modern art. Jack and his team were building the catalog raisonne for Motherwell's work, and they got their eyes on a black and white painting with exaggerated drip marks.

[Jack Flam]

There was something off about the painting. Among other things, it was severely warped. I'd never seen a Motherwell painting so warped.

[Giselle Rigatau]

That piece was from the gallery Julian Weisman Fine Art. Later, they see a piece from the Knoedler Gallery.

[Jack Flam]

It was out of balance. The contours were too clean. There were a whole series of compositional factors that didn't look right.

[Giselle Rigatau]

So the committee decides they need to look at these paintings together. They gather images of seven different mother whales. Four came from Knoedler and three from Julian Weizman.

[Jack Flam]

Seeing them together, they didn't look right. Six of them were dated 1953 on the back, and one is dated 1955. But the curious thing is that they were signed almost exactly the same way. In other words, it was a kind of. Almost like a template that somebody was following.

[Giselle Rigatau]

At that point, Jack turns to the.

[Jack Flam]

Group and asks, so, do you think they're fake? And they said, yes. And I said, I think you're right. I think they are fake.

[Giselle Rigatau]

They felt they had to act right away.

[Jack Flam]

The very first thing we did was we called Anne Friedman, the president of.

[Giselle Rigatau]

The Knoedler Gallery, thinking we're doing her.

[Jack Flam]

A big favor, because if she's dealing with fake paintings, she should know it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

But when Ann came to meet them, Jack says it was clear she didn't see it as a favor.

[Jack Flam]

Instead of saying, wow, thanks so much for letting us know, she started arguing with us.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Jack starts suspecting that the problem might be bigger than a few fake Mother Wells. So he reaches out to art experts who've seen other paintings sold to the galleries by Glafira Rosales. She's the woman who would eventually be convicted for selling all the fake paintings to the galleries.

[Jack Flam]

And they all told me that they had harbored suspicions for a long time about those paintings. Paintings by other artists, by Rothko, by de Kooning.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Why they didn't say anything.

[Jack Flam]

They didn't say anything for the same reason that we didn't say anything at the beginning publicly, which is they were afraid to get sued for defamation of property.

[Giselle Rigatau]

In other words, they didn't want to use the F word either. If they were wrong, they could be sued for defamation. But proving a painting is fake can be hard to do. So Jack's team hires a private investigator to look into Glafira Rosales. Very quickly, they learn that her boyfriend has been sued in his home country of Spain, including for selling fake art. Jack's shocked that the two galleries don't seem to know any of this.

[Jack Flam]

If I were buying millions of dollars worth of paintings from someone who had a classic, flimsy story, I would have at the very least googled her, hired a private investigator.

[Giselle Rigatau]

With this new evidence, they decided to hire a forensic expert. People assume this kind of analysis is commonplace in the art world, but it's not. Million dollar paintings are bought and sold all the time without it because forensic analysis is. Is expensive. So it's used more as a tool of last resort. The test on the mother well is conclusive. The painting could not have been made back in the 50s because some of the materials didn't even exist then. But still, Jack says, even at this point, Anne Friedman keeps insisting the painting is real. So In March of 2009, he calls the FBI. As the investigation gets underway, Knoedler quickly crumbles. All the paintings from Glafira Rosales were placed on a not for sale list. Without them, the gallery couldn't stay afloat. At the end of 2011, the oldest gallery in New York City, which had been in business for 165 years, closed its doors. Then came a dozen lawsuits. Collectors, including John Howard, sued the owners and presidents of the galleries. All the suits were settled, all for undisclosed amounts. We mentioned earlier that the only one to be prosecuted in all of this was Glafira Rosales. And until early 2020, they. The heads of the galleries, like Julian Wiseman, were still in business. I got in touch with his lawyer, David Baum, to set up an interview. But.

[John Howard]

Julian is not going to.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I mean, I don't want to say.

[John Howard]

This rudely or anything, but he's not going to be. He's not going to sit down for an interview?

[Giselle Rigatau]

No. Why not? Why. Why would he? I explained that I wanted to give Julian a chance to tell his side of the story. David told me his client was a victim too, who, just like the collectors, was scammed by Glafira Rosales. As far as we're concerned, this is sort of behind us.

[John Howard]

You know, it would be nice for this story to go away rather than people continuing to bring it up.

[Giselle Rigatau]

But there's a reason I'm bringing it up. Without the galleries, collectors never would have bought those Fakes in the first place. Clients trusted Julian Wiseman and the Knoedler Gallery to get this right. So how did they get it so completely wrong? The former owner of Knoedler, Michael Hammer, also wouldn't talk to me. I mentioned earlier that Ann Friedman also wouldn't agree to be interviewed for this story. But I did manage to sit down with her lawyer, Luke Nikas. I met him at his office on Madison Avenue. The first thing that caught my attention was his art. Tell me, what do you have here?

[Luke Nikas]

So there are three paintings. One is a painting in the style of Mark Rothko.

[Giselle Rigatau]

In the style? That's his way of saying that, yeah, he decorated his office with a few of the fake paintings.

[Luke Nikas]

The one in the center is a work in the style of Jackson Pollock. And the bottom, it's something in the lower right hand corner. This is the work that got some attention because Pollock is not spelled correctly.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Even though they're not real, he says they have value to him. So he asked Ian if he could keep them.

[Luke Nikas]

From my perspective, I'm not going to buy a $15 million Mark Rothko painting. And this is an interesting piece of art history, an interesting piece of legal history, and happens to be an interesting work of art itself. That's good enough reason for me.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I ask Luke why Knoedler bought so many paintings with almost zero provenance. Just a story from Glafira Rosales about an anonymous European collector. Luke insists the gallery did pressure Glafira to provide more information.

[Luke Nikas]

And Rosales reaction is, in essence, he's an extremely private person. He's not going to reveal his name. And you have the work of art there. And if you're comfortable with the work of art, then this is, in essence, the story that's behind it.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Now, how common is that for an Oedler to be buying art with a story like that?

[Luke Nikas]

It is uncommon.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Remember, Knoedler was making a lot of money on these paintings, sometimes selling the fakes for more than 10 times what it paid for them. But look says that was for a good reason.

[Luke Nikas]

Knoedler got them and did an incredible amount of diligence to vet them.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Knoedler claims it did two things to vet the paintings. First, it brought in experts, and the gallery says every one of them believed the paintings were authentic. And during a civil lawsuit, some testified that they did believe the works were real. But other experts say they only saw the paintings briefly or that they didn't fully authenticate them. Second, the gallery says it did research on whether Glafira Rosales story about the anonymous collector was plausible. Not if the story was true, but if it was plausible, Luke says they concluded it was.

[Luke Nikas]

The document production that Knoedler made in this case was thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of research and memos and letters.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Research on what?

[Luke Nikas]

On the story.

[Giselle Rigatau]

But it was all fake. What kind of research was that? Sure, you and I would have done better, Luke. I spent months examining court documents and found a letter that hasn't been reported on before. It's from then US Attorney Preet Bharara to the judge who was sentencing Glafira Rosales for her role in all this. Glafira has been silent about the fraud and wouldn't agree to be interviewed for this story. But Bharara's letter is a window into what she told prosecutors. Lafeu alleges that gallery employees eagerly demanded hard to obtain works from famous artists without ever questioning where they came from. Luke says there's a simple explanation for this, that his client, Anne Friedman, was just trying to understand what paintings the anonymous collector might have.

[Luke Nikas]

When you look over the course of the entire 14 years, Glafira was very careful about what she brought to the gallery. She'd bring one work a year, she'd bring two works a year. She would never say completely what was in the collection beyond that. And the way she did that meant that she didn't create the kind of red flags that are easy to see when you look at this today backwards.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Barara's letter also says Glafira told investigators that employees at the two galleries helped come up with fake provenance. Luke sees this differently. He says Knoedler was just trying to establish provenance. Employees were doing their due diligence. And he says, without meaning to, that research ended up making the fake paintings even more attractive to collectors.

[Luke Nikas]

But ultimately, this information sold works that were fake. And so did we mean for that to happen? I think they'd say absolutely not. But did that happen? Of course it did.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I tried reaching out to Preet Bharar about that letter, but I never heard back. However, I did manage to track down the lead federal prosecutor in the art fraud case, Jason Hernandez.

This was a difficult case.

Jason spent years investigating the fake art scheme when he worked at the U.S. attorney's office. I asked him why the galleries were never indicted. He says it's because cases like this are tricky that it's hard to prove the galleries were intentionally selling fake art.

The burden in a criminal case is extremely high. You have to prove that someone set out to Defraud another person beyond a reasonable doubt, and you gotta convince 12 people of that.

Jason is careful while he talks to me. He will only reveal so much about the case. One thing he does say is that while one can argue that the galleries acted carelessly, that isn't enough to charge them with a crime.

Ultimately, a decision was made not to bring a criminal charge because you have to be able to prove an intent to defraud beyond a reasonable doubt.

Did you agree with that decision?

Oh, I'm not going to comment on any of our internal decision making. That's not something that's public.

[Jack Flam]

Given the other information in the case, it's inexplicable why the prosecution did not go forward.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John Lauro is a former federal prosecutor in New York City and partner at a national law firm. I wanted his opinion on the case.

[Jack Flam]

I've seen cases with much less evidence get convictions, much less.

[Giselle Rigatau]

John was not involved directly in the case. He says there is a bias, that the art world is made up of wealthy people who can take care of themselves. But he says all victims deserve justice. And he thinks this case doesn't just matter to the people directly involved, but to anyone who cares about art, because part of what art is about is an original idea, not just a reproduction of an idea.

[Jack Flam]

If we don't have confidence in the genuineness of the art, then the art becomes diminished and it becomes almost worthless. So that what's the difference between a real Rothko and a fake Rothko?

[Giselle Rigatau]

Do you think there should be more regulation or control of the art market? And if so, wouldn't the pursuit of cases like that send that message?

[Jack Flam]

Absolutely. Ultimately, in my mind, the biggest deterrent to art fraud is a federal prosecution, pure and simple.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Lafira Rosales remains the only person who's been arrested for this scheme. In 2013, she spent three months in jail before being released on Bailey. She could have faced 99 years in prison.

Glafira was also ordered to pay $81 million to the victims of the scheme. She sold her house and her bank accounts were confiscated. Giselie tried many times to talk with her and was told Glafira rented a room from a friend on Long Island. The last time she went there to try to meet with Glafira, she wasn't. She was working her new job, waiting tables at a restaurant 40 minutes away. Also, we should add, Michael Hammer, the former owner of the Knoedler gallery, died in 2022. Thanks to reporter Giselle Rigatau for that story. It's Worth mentioning that since we first aired this story, there's been another high profile incident. 25 forged paintings, fakes in the style of Basquiat, was shown at the Orlando Museum of art in 2022. That fraud sparked soul searching across the art world about how to tell the difference between fakes and the real thing. Coming up, art looted by Nazis during World War II turns up half a century later. You're listening to Reveal. Stay with.

[Jack Flam]

Foreign.

[Giselle Rigatau]

When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify.

[Al Letson]

Start your free trial today. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air.

[Giselle Rigatau]

I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's on the Media.

[Al Letson]

Want to understand the reasons and the meanings and the of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass that's.

[Giselle Rigatau]

On the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts from the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. I'm Al Edson. Our next story isn't about an art forgery, but an art theft, one that's connected to a massive leak of documents. You've probably heard about the Panama Papers. It was a trove of financial documents made public back in 2016 that shed light onto offshore financial systems that companies and the ultra wealthy used to hide their money and avoid taxes. Frederick Zalak from the CBC is one of the journalists who sifted through the Panama Papers.

[John Howard]

We often think about taxes all the time, but we don't think of the artwork world of being one where offshore entities are being used.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Frederick would get pulled into this story to find out what happened to one very rare and very valuable piece of art. It's a story we first aired back in 2017. Former Reveal reporter Emily Harris takes it from here.

[Al Letson]

We start in Paris. It's World War II. The Nazis are in charge.

[John Howard]

In 1940, darkness fell over the City of Light.

[Al Letson]

Their orders include seizing and selling off anything of value that Jewish families own.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Art was a central aspect of the Holocaust.

[Al Letson]

That's Kenneth Wayne. He's an art historian. He specializes in modern art.

[Giselle Rigatau]

So they would loot from Jewish families and from museums too.

[Al Letson]

One of the paintings, the Nazis Looted was from a gallery owned by Frenchman named Oscar Stetner. Stetner's descendants believe the looted painting was a portrait now called Seated man with a Cane.

[Giselle Rigatau]

It's a man seated, looking very dapper. He's got a mustache, he has a hat, and he looks like, you know, a Parisian gentleman. And it has kind of a caricatural quality to it.

[Al Letson]

That portrait was painted around 1918 by an Italian artist named Amedeo Modigliani.

[Giselle Rigatau]

There were all these different movements during.

The time period he was working, but he really did his own thing.

[Al Letson]

Modigliani died young. He never got rich. But now his work is more popular than ever.

[Jack Flam]

So we move to the Beautiful Modigliani.

[Al Letson]

Lot 8, painted in Paris in 2015. A different painting by Modigliani sold for $170 million.

[Jack Flam]

Sold here.

[Al Letson]

That was one of Modigliani's famous nudes. That price puts his work into a very exclusive club. But let's head back to Paris. It's now 1944, July 3rd. A Monday. Allied troops have already landed in Europe. Paris will be free soon. But it's not yet that Monday. Nazis order an auction at Oskar Stettner's gallery. After that sale, Seated man with a Cane completely disappears. And nobody sees it publicly for more than 50 years. So where does it go for half a century? Well, even when it turns up, there's very little information. It's now 1996. Seated man with a Cane appears for sale at the swanky auction house Christie's. Christie's doesn't mention Nazis or Oskar Stettner in the information published for the sale. The descendants of Oskar Stetner have no idea. They might be the rightful owners. Enter the art hunter.

[Giselle Rigatau]

My name is James Palmer and I'm the founder of Mondex Corporation.

[Al Letson]

James is short and serious. Art is his passion. Hunting lost art is his business.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Our company is in the business of helping clients recover looted assets and in particular, art that was looted during the Second world war.

[Al Letson]

Around 2009, James and his team are searching French archives for information about a completely different case.

[Giselle Rigatau]

And we happened upon a document that referred to the court claim after the war by Oskar Stettner for the Seated man by Modigliani.

[Al Letson]

James knows Modigliani's famous nudes, but he's never heard of the Seated man and he's never heard of Oskar Stettner. So why the big fuss about these old French court documents? Because they tell him there is a looted painting out there and he is going to find it. The papers show that Oskar Stetner went to court after the war to get.

[Luke Nikas]

The painting back and actually won that.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Court case and won an order for that painting to be returned.

[Al Letson]

But he never got it back. Meanwhile, James finds Stetner's grandson. He tells him about this mystery. And in 2011, he helps Stetner's grandson file a lawsuit to claim the painting.

[Giselle Rigatau]

This painting was stolen. It belonged to Mr. Stetner, and it needs to be returned.

[Al Letson]

And this is where the fight over the painting goes around and around in circles. Manhattan Civil Court. Fast Forward now to April 2000, 2016. The Panama Papers hit headlines all over the world. Here's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Frederic Zalak again.

[John Howard]

On this edition of the Fifth Estate Stolen Treasures.

[Al Letson]

Reporters collaborating on the Panama Papers first find emails about the missing painting. Then they dig deeper.

[Giselle Rigatau]

This case has multiple moving parts.

[Al Letson]

That's New York lawyer Philip Landrigan. He's done commercial law for 35 years.

[Luke Nikas]

I wouldn't say that. I'm an art lawyer. I prepare cases for trial.

[Al Letson]

His favorite part of the job is appearing in court. He represents Oskar Stetner's grandson trying to get the painting. They sued an extremely wealthy big art dealing family named Namad1. Namod's son owns a gallery that had tried to sell Seated man with a Cane a couple years before. But the nmaads fight back in court. The very first paper they file, in fact, the very first line written in their defense says to Oskar Stetner's grandson, you're suing the wrong people. This is where the Panama Papers make the difference. The NAMAADS argue that a company called the International Art center, or IAC owns and controls the painting. Philipp Landrigan doesn't buy it.

[Luke Nikas]

We don't believe that there's any distinction between IAC and the Nomads because the company's not operated under normal corporate formalities.

[Al Letson]

The IAC was actually created by that Panama firm that specializes in shell companies. The firm whose documents were leake. And deep inside their 11 million records, reporters find evidence that the Namaads own the IAC. So it appears they own the Modigliani painting Seated Man.

[John Howard]

In court, there was a big debate about, well, no, it's not the Namaz. They don't own the painting. You know, they have nothing to do with it. And yet in the Panama Papers, we could see that the ownership of the shell company was directly the Namad family. It was black and white there.

[Al Letson]

So Frederick takes that proof to the NAMAD's lawyer, Richard Golub. Here's that interview from Frederick's CBC report in 2016.

[John Howard]

So we have obtained internal documents of International Art Center. Have you? Public records? No, actually, internal documents that show, for example, that the ownership of International arts Center is Mr. Namad's hundred percent shareholder. Right. So Mr. Namad and IAC are one and the same. No, they're not. That's your point of view. But that's irrelevant. Whoever owns IAC is irrelevant. The person who owns the company that. Well, that's your point. That's your point of view. Well, it's not my point of view, it's the documents. I don't know what the document says and it doesn't matter what the document says. That document may be superseded. I don't know what that document means and I don't know where you got it. And it doesn't mean anything. The question here. No, I'd like to know that. We don't go. The interview's over. We don't do that. The interviews. There's nothing else to say. I'm not gonna. I told you before, there's nothing else I'm going to say.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Because who owns IAC is about as.

[John Howard]

Relevant to this as, you know, who's living on Pluto.

[Al Letson]

I want to talk with Richard Golub further, but he declines. The lawyer on the other side representing Oskar Stetner's grandson, says the Panama Papers prove his allegations against the Namods.

[Luke Nikas]

We alleged that they were the alter ego, but we didn't have the documentary evidence that the Panama Papers provided. Specifically the stock certificate showing that David Nomad was the sole shareholder.

[Al Letson]

Still, CBC reporters want to know more. Producer Rona Syed finds a connection that blows her away. The man who bought the painting at the Nazi auction kept it all those years. His daughter and grandson sold it through Christie's to the Nomads. It just seemed too much of a coincidence that the surname was the same as the cellar of the painting in 1996 to Christie's. Other reporters are also hot on the trail. A French TV crew manages to film the painting inside the tax free warehouse in Switzerland where the Nomads stash it away. And that crew records something no one has ever, ever seen publicly before.

[John Howard]

Before the painting was put back in place, the handlers turned it around.

[Al Letson]

On the back you can see a label from the Venice Biennale art show from 1930.

[John Howard]

There's a space for owner and it's scratched out. And the address below is scratched out. But when you look at it closely, when the French d. I had some experts look at it. You could make out from the bits that are still there that the likely name that was there was Stettner.

[Al Letson]

For the art hunter James Palmer, this seals the deal.

[Giselle Rigatau]

Lo and behold, there's Oskar Stettner's name and address. That was stunning information, but it's still.

[Al Letson]

Not enough to add end the hard fought court case. It does raise new questions. Did Christie's know the painting's full history or did it hide information when the Nomads bought it in 1996? The grandson's lawyer says this Their provenance.

[Luke Nikas]

In the 1996 catalog is demonstrably false.

[Al Letson]

Christie's has said that it reviewed 10,000 documents and could not find any more records of of the painting's history. It's now been more than 70 years since seated man with a Cane was looted by the Nazis. The Nahmad family has fought for years to dismiss the lawsuit, but New York's state appeals court has ruled it can go forward. And James Palmer, the art detective, says he's just found new evidence he believes will be important in that trial. He found a photo of the painting in a French archive with this note from the 1950s. Modigliani stolen, sought in America.

[Giselle Rigatau]

That was former Reveal reporter Emily Harris along with CBC reporter Frederick Zalak. We first aired this story back in 2017. The lawsuit over the Modigliani is still moving Forward more than 11 years later. Bret Myers and Suzanne Reber edited today's show. Giselle Rigatau and Emily Harris produced the show with help from Janet Babin. Thanks to Mark Scheffler, Miguel Macias, Victoria Burnett and Deborah Solomon for help with the story about art fraud. It was supported in part by a grant from the Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York. And thanks to CBC Radio Canada for partnering on the story about looted artwork. Thanks also to Lamond, NDR and ICIJ for production assistance with that story. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Our production manager is Ulema Cobb. Score and sound design by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My Man Yo Arruda. They had help this week from Brett Simpson, Najeeb Amini, Sandra Lopez, Monsalve, Claire C. Knope Mullen, Catherine, Ray Mondo and Kat Schucnick. Taki Telenides is our deputy executive producer. Our executive producer is Bret Myers. Our Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. I'm Al Edson and remember, there is always more to the story. Okay, so the credits are over and you're still here. I bet it's because you're hoping for that phone number that you know will allow you to donate to your favorite investigative journalism podcast with your favorite investigative journalism host. Well, my friend, here you are. Just text the word give to 88857 Reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org2026. Your support really does make a difference. And your favorite investigative journalism podcast host.

[Al Letson]

From prx.